Questions Persist Over 1884 Trade Dollars
You would think that after more than a century we would know all there is to know about certain coins. We have mintages, with population reports, survival rates and just about anything else that could possibly matter when it comes to evaluating a coin. Then there is a coin like the 1884 Trade dollar. Instead of answers, all we seem to produce are questions.
In fact, some of our greatest rarities, and the 1884 Trade dollar qualifies as one of those rarities, with a mintage of 10, seem to be the coins about which there are the most questions.
For years we basically assumed an assortment of things. It was a clandestine product of a Mint that was not totally adverse to doing a little business on the side. Any number of important patterns and rarities were probably not regular products of the average day at the Mint, but rather special creations for favored persons.
Some have questioned the legitimacy of such coins from time to time, but the simple fact is they have been accepted for years by the hobby and owing to their great rarity, the examples of the 1884 Trade dollar are among the most prized coins in the world.
Over the years there have been a few passing references to the 1884 Trade dollar suggesting that it had a mintage of not the long accepted 10, but rather 264. Researcher Arlie Slabaugh has even found Treasury sheets from the period suggesting the 264 figure. It is worth remembering that the Trade dollar back in 1884 had not been officially terminated. It was produced in the previous years, but from 1879 its production had been limited to proof examples whose mintage was determined simply by the number of requests the Mint received. So creation of an 1884 Trade dollar would not technically have been illegal. The figure of 264, however, flies in the face of known examples as survival rates of proof coins of the period are far above average.
The question becomes how to reconcile 10 and 264 as the possible mintages of 1884 Trade dollars. To that question there just may be no good answer. The 264 figure is unfortunately for a fiscal year. Moreover, there is some suggestion that some dollars dated 1837 or possibly 1836 produced in 1837 were recoined. We know of no 1837 dollars, but there are 1836-dated dollars and restrikes of the special Gobrecht dollars were created for many years so the possibility exists of a potential trade for 1884 and 1885 Trade dollars created especially for favored friends of Mint officials.
The 264 reported dollars could easily have been dated 1883, while the recoined dollars are perhaps the key to determining the facts behind the 1884 and 1885 Trade dollars, of which only five are known of the latter date.
Unless we find more information we will probably never know with certainty. The possibility, however, seems like the most likely way of explaining the 1884 and 1885 Trade dollars, as the small “recoining” would allow their production with their actual dates remaining a mystery. One thing we do know is the 1884 and 1885 Trade dollars are major rarities, with the 1885 even approaching the $1 million price level. Whatever the actual mintage, the 1884 Trade dollar is a significant rarity with an interesting story and some still unanswered questions. Perhaps a reader will flesh this story out further.